Paige Bennethum, 4, holds her daddy's hand as he lines up in formation before heading to Iraq.

No one had the heart to stop Paige from lining up with her daddy.

May God Bless our troops and all of the families and children that make such sacrifices.

EC1

Bubba Dawg

10-09-2009, 09:15 PM

Wow.

Poignant.

Apache

10-09-2009, 09:16 PM

:o

+1 :D

Apache

10-09-2009, 09:17 PM

Wow.

Poignant.

At least you could think of something to say...

me not so much, so...

ditto ;)

raiderguy8

10-09-2009, 09:48 PM

I am typically an old softie anyway, but wow, did I tear up immediately.

lacarnut

10-10-2009, 01:32 AM

That breaks my heart and makes me mad. We have lost enough lives in Iraq and Afghan. Eight years is too long to fight a war.

Flame away. My solution is to withdraw troops, spray the poppy fields, blockade Iran and threaten to nuke them if they train one more terrorist and make one more IED.

Rockntractor

10-10-2009, 01:45 AM

That breaks my heart and makes me mad. We have lost enough lives in Iraq and Afghan. Eight years is too long to fight a war.

Flame away. My solution is to withdraw troops, spray the poppy fields, blockade Iran and threaten to nuke them if they train one more terrorist and make one more IED.

I tend to agree with you!

JenKay

10-11-2009, 10:12 PM

That just melts my heart! With my husband being Navy and deployed right now as we speak....it hits home :(

Last Samurai

11-01-2009, 07:31 PM

Being a twenty year Marine Vet, one side of me wants to just say...... hey, it comes with the uniform and the paycheck AND the Oath. The inevitable separations are part of the career pattern. Not much to be done about it. To be expected and planned for.

On the other side of the coin, with my past experience in another endless war to go on......... THESE present "occupations/wars" have gone on much too long. I am reminded of nothing more than the prolonged agony of the Viet Nam War. Only two exceptions, these wars are fought in sand and mountains rather than jungle, and in these examples we have no politically recognized antagonist with which to "negotiate" a "peace with honor" (:rolleyes:) with. (Should we decide to "bug out" quickly.)

We can ask a lot of our troops, but to ask them to dangle their lives in repetitive "tours of duty" without a decent end of this in sight goes a bit too far, IMHO.

LS

djones520

11-01-2009, 07:45 PM

Big differance between the other "endless war" is that the people fighting this one asked to. There is not a single person serving today who did not know the risks when they took that oath. There are some, like myself, who want to get over there even more. I've been to OEF once so far. I keep asking to go again, but just haven't been sent yet.

I keep seeing all these things talking about how stressed the military is. I'm just offering my opinion, but I think we have a whole lot more to give before we get close to our breaking point.

Bongo55

11-01-2009, 08:10 PM

I think most folks would like to see this end. But I believe this fight against Islamics has and will go on for some time. We have been fighting these assholes for decades we just haven't really noticed it. But now it has escalated to bombs and bullets since 9-11. These guys are making their move for world domination just as the axis powers did, and if we don't fight back we could sentence that beautiful little girl and all in her generation to a world that would frankly suck.

Pretty much same thing as with the progressives.

Last Samurai

11-01-2009, 08:10 PM

Has nothing to do with "breaking point", has to do with committing our best to endless wars without an end game in mind.... or even the sightest notion of arriving at a concept for an end game.

There IS a big difference in being willing to sacrifice one's life for a reason.... it is another to be required to do so in perpetuation of "political expediancy".

I can think of a good solution, require the next battalion committed to Afghanistan to consist of our Congresscritters and their children. Bet a "solution" would be arrived at before deployment date! ;)

..... all this, all the American lives, all the National Treasure, all the death and destruction brought upon the Nations we "went into" and we STILL haven't "broken" the originators of 9/11..... ostensibly the reason why we got into it in the first place.

You DO see my concern, yes? It's called "FOCUS OF INTENT"! I don't believe we had one going in, let alone now. Once again we "fight" ghosts..... they will be there after we leave. Result...... moderate damage to the enemy, but the enemy and his reason for existance will still exist. Bush WAS right about one thing.... they are "in it" for the long run, we have never shown much patience for "long run" wars. Advantage.... their's!

LS

Last Samurai

11-01-2009, 08:23 PM

I think most folks would like to see this end. But i believe this fight against Islamics has and will go on for some time. We have been fighting these assholes for decades we just haven't really noticed it. But now it has escalated to bombs and bullets since 9-11. These guy are making their move for world domination just as the axis powers did, and if we don't fight back we could sentence that beautiful little girl and all in her generation to a world that would frankly suck.

Pretty much same thing as with the progressives.

I read the first paragraph and got ready to reply with an observation that you summed up quite well in your last sentence.

It's a bit depressing to realize that our own duly elected Government is adding to the "suck factor" so readily.

Oh well, I have been a long ascriber to the political theory that a Nation gets exactly the Government it deserves. In the case of "duly elected Governments" it only takes a majority of voters (legit or not) to accomplish the same result.

In my youth I thought that America could evolve into the shining example of all that a Nation and it's Government could be. As it turns out we have done nothing more than to prove that vitually every Government eventually becomes too powerful, too greedy, too corrupt and unmanagable for the citizenry to "control". Whereupon, the Government then "controls" the citizenry.

Oooooops.

LS

Last Samurai

11-01-2009, 08:34 PM

MY BAD! Just noticed the "no politics" addendum to this forum heading.

I hereby apologize and offer my "mea culpa".

Write it off to a newbie error of judgement, or reading disability, if you MUST! LOL!